FAQ
This page is a collection of frequently asked questions from WW4 users and developers.
General:
Contributing:
Presently there is no peer reviewed foundational reference or a published manual for WW4TM. Until such documents become available, please use the progress report(s) of the development project (Tolman 2025, Tolman 2026) as citation for WW4. Please consult the TRADEMARK.md page on how to acknowledge the WAVEWATCH trademarks. Note that WAVEWATCH is originally an acronym, and should therefore always be fully capitalized.
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Tolman, H. L., 2025: The WAVEWATCH III® Software Modernization Project: Phase I report, NOAA NCEP Office Note 525, 30 pp. + Appendices, DOI: 10.25923/h7j3-1h25.
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Tolman, H. L., 2026: The WAVEWATCH IV TM Project: Phase II report, NOAA NCEP Office Note 528, 30 pp. + Appendices, DOI: 10.25923/0wyp-9f39
How WAVEWATCH is cited depends on where it is cited. If reference is made to the scientific and technological development associated with the model, it is common practice to use a foundational reference to the model. If results of the model are used, it is common practice to refer to the manual of the model version that is used (often together with the origins foundational reference). The following are considered to be the foundational references to the original WAVEWATCH and subsequent version II through IV.
- Tolman, H. L., 1991: A third-generation model for wind waves on slowly varying, unsteady and inhomogeneous depths and currents. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 21, 782-797.
- Tolman, H. L., 1992: Effects of numerics on the physics in a third-generation wind-wave model. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 22, 1095-1111.
- Tolman, H. L., B. Balasubramaniyan, L. D. Burroughs, D. V. Chalikov, Y. Y. Chao, H. S. Chen, and V. M. Gerald, 2002: Development and implementation of wind generated ocean surface wave models at NCEP. Weather and Forecasting, 17, 311-333.
- There is no foundational reference for WAVEWATCH IV yet.
No manuals have been published with WAVEWATCH and WAVEWATCH II, and manuals are not yet available for WW4. The most recent manual of WW3 is
- WW3DG, 2019: User Manual and System Documentation of WAVEWATCH III version 6.07, The WAVEWATCH III Development Group, Tech. Note, 326 pp. + Appendices, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/MMAB.
Please consult the TRADEMARK.md page on how to acknowledge the WAVEWATCH trademarks. Note that WAVEWATCH is originally an acronym, and should therefore always be fully capitalized.
There is code in the repository, so there are things you can contribute. In particular, if you want to work on the present code, please let us know through the Discussion and Issues feature of the repository. The code is not yet sufficiently mature for numerical or physical contributions, with the exception of starting to convert existing physics packages.
Check this wiki page for the procedures NWS is using to convert source terms from WW3 to WW4
